André Franquin

(3 January 1924 - 5 January 1997, Belgium)

'Le Nid des Marsupilamis'

André Franquin is undoubtedly the grandmaster of the so-called "School of Marcinelle", the group of artists who worked for the magazine Spirou during its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. A true legend in the world of comics, Franquin earned countless fans, both for his series in general, as well as his dynamic, energetic and vivid drawing style. He became the third artist to continue the magazine's title comic 'Spirou et Fantasio', which he did between 1946 and 1969. Franquin enriched the franchise by creating longer, more complex and ambitious narratives. He also introduced several characters still used by his successors, including the Count of Champignac, the Mayor of Champignac, Zorglub, Zantafio, Seccotine and one of the world's most strangest animals, the Marsupilami, who'd inspire a succesful spin-off series of its own. Franquin is unanimously regarded as the best artist 'Spirou' ever had. Above all he was a comedic genius. He crafted some of the funniest gag comics ever made, such as about the couple 'Modeste et Pompon' (1955-1959) and of course his signature series 'Gaston Lagaffe' (1957-1996), about the most incompetent office clerk who ever existed. In the dawn of his career, Franquin started drawing more adult comics as well, of which the nihilistic and satirical 'Idées Noires' (1977) is the most notorious and celebrated. Franquin's graphic style has been imitated by countless artists, making him one of the most influential Belgian comic artists of all time, next to Hergé and Jijé.

Early life and career
Born in Etterbeek in 1924, the young Franquin showed an early talent for drawing and studied at the Institut Saint-Luc in Saint-Gilles for one year. Shortly after leaving school, he took a part-time job in the animation studios Compagnie Belge d'Actualités (C.B.A.), where he worked alongside Jacques Eggermont, Morris, Eddy Paape, and Peyo. After the closing of this studio, Morris introduced him to Jijé, then the main artist for Spirou magazine. Jijé paved the way for him and Morris to work for the magazine's publisher, Éditions Dupuis. During this period, Franquin also made illustrations for the scouting magazine Plein Jeu.

Spirou - 'Radar le Robot' (1947)

Spirou
Franquin, together with Morris and Will, went to work in Jijé's house in Waterloo, where the four artists formed the "Gang of Four", with Jijé as tutor and inspirator. Besides Jijé, Franquin was also influenced by artists like Hergé, Floyd Gottfredson, Harvey Kurtzman, E.C. Segar, Georges Beuville, Chic Young, Tex Avery, Hokusai, Charles M. Schulz and Ronald Searle. Franquin started out making (cover) illustrations for the Dupuis magazines Le Moustique and Bonnes Soirées, but was eventually handed over the writing and art duties on Spirou's title strip, 'Spirou et Fantasio', on 20 June 1946. He took over in the middle of Jijé's episode 'Les Maisons Préfabriquées' (1946), and moved on to create stories on his own, like 'Le Tank' (1946), 'L'Héritage' (1946) and 'Radar le Robot' (1947), all still heavily influenced by Jijé and his animation background.

'La Mauvaise Tête'

In 1948 and 1949 he accompanied Jijé and Morris on a trip through the USA and Mexico, during which he kept sending his 'Spirou' pages to Europe. Franquin eventually found his own style in his 'Spirou' stories, and shaped the series for the decades to come. He began making longer stories, starting with 'Il y a un Sorcier à Champignac' in 1950-51, and introduced a great variety of new side-characters to the strip. In the former mentioned album he established the little town of Champignac, where Spirou and Fantasio would often pay a visit. In the same story two main cast members made their debut as well, namely the self-important mayor Gustave Labarbe and the local Count: Pacîme Hégésippe Adélard Ladislas in full but usually shortened to "the Count of Champignac". The old nobleman is a part-time scientist, inventor and owner of a mushroom plantation. He functions as the genius but absent-minded professor of the franchise and is a good friend of Spirou and Fantasio. Another friend of the heroes is young female reporter Seccotine, who made her debut in 'La Corne de Rhinocéros' (1953). The character was notable because she was an attractive female in a time when most children's comics magazines shied away from using sexy women. Not only that: Seccotine actually had a colourful personality. She wasn't just a damsel in distress or platonic love interest, but worked as an independent journalist. While she was overall nice and enthusiastic, she could easily get agitated when feeling offended and slap people in the face.

Introduction of Zorglub, in 'Z Comme Zorglub'

Franquin also created two recurring antagonists, Zantafio and Zorglub. Zantafio is Fantasio's evil cousin and made his debut in 'Spirou et les Héritiers' (1951). Zorglub is a megalomaniac scientist who made his first appearance in 'Z comme Zorglub' (1959). The most iconic character however was the Marsupilami, whom readers first got to know in 'Spirou et les Héritiers' (1951). The strange creature was inspired by E.C. Segar's equally odd character Eugene the Jeep from 'Popeye'. The leopard-striped monkey-like creature with his familiar call "Houba! Houba!" and extremely long tail provided Franquin with numerous ideas for gags and storylines. So much even, that he always kept the Marsupilami's copyright and later developed his own spin-off series about him. Apart from introducing new characters Franquin also fleshed out the personalities of older ones. Fantasio became more of a loud-mouthed twit, while Spirou's loyal squirrel Spip gained the role of a somewhat cynical commentator. Overall, he also provided the definitieve design of the main cast.

Champignac terrorized by a dinosaur in 'Le voyageur du Mésozoïque'

The enlargement of the Spirou universe and the very humorous and well-structured stories made Franquin, in the minds of many people, the ultimate 'Spirou et Fantasio' artist. Every artist who has drawn the series afterwards has always been compared to Franquin. In his Spirou stories, Franquin regularly expressed his love for animals 'Le Nid des Marsupilamis', 1956-1957, 'Le Gorille a bonne mine',1956, 'Le voyageur du Mésozoïque', 1957), sports ('Spirou sur le ring', 1946 1949, 'Les voleurs du Marsupilami', 1952,'La mauvaise tête', 1954) and cars ('La corne de rhinocéros', 1953, 'La Quick Super', 1955), as well as his antimilitaristic sentiments ('Le dictateur et le champignon' 1953-1954, 'QRN sur Bretzelburg', 1961-1963). He proved a master in drawing highly technical, yet fluently drawn mechanical objects and inventions, like in 'Radar le Robot' and the Zorglub-cycle. Also notable was his unsurpassed talent for exciting storytelling and (comedy) timing.

Franquin leaves out the shot where the arrow actually hits the apple. Typical example of Franquin's storytelling and timing, in 'Bravo Les Brothers'.

Modeste et Pompon
In 1955, after a dispute with his publisher Dupuis, Franquin headed to competitor Lombard, and signed a five-year contract to work for Tintin magazine. Thus began Franquin's first venture into the comic gag strip, 'Modeste et Pompon', which was first published on 19 October 1955. The series follows the trials and tribulations of a young man, Modeste, and his cute girlfriend, Pompon. Modeste is short-tempered and often overestimates his abilities, which brings him into frequent trouble. He is frequently bothered by Félix, an obnoxious door-to-door salesman. Félix also has three equally irritating nephews whom he regularly forces Modeste and Pompon to babysit on. Another rival is the couple's grumpy neighbour Mr. Ducrin.

However, the disagreement with Dupuis was soon resolved, and Franquin had to work for both magazines at the same time. Fortunately, he got the assistance of other scriptwriters for his 'Modeste et Pompon' gags, most notably René Goscinny and Michel Greg. It was Greg who invented Mr. Ducrin, while Goscinny came up with another obnoxious neighbour, Mr. Dubruit. When Franquin's contract with Lombard ended in 1959, the strip was continued by other artists in the following decades, including Dino Attanasio (1959-1968), Mittéï (1968-1975), Griffo (1975), Bertrand Dupont (1976-1979) and Walli & Bom (1980-1988).

'Modeste et Pompon'

Besides being the first showcase of Franquin's talent for gags, 'Modeste et Pompon' is well-known for its designs of cars and home interiors. Largely inspired by Franquin's own abstract design furniture, the comic's depiction of Modeste's home gives a preserved look in the everyday life of the 1950s. The drawings became more angular and geometric, with a large focus on modernism. This style was also typical for the 1958 World Expo in Brussels, and would later become known as the "Atomic style". It was also omni-present in the work of Jijé and Will, and knew a revival in the 1980s through artists like Joost Swarte, Yves Chaland, Ever Meulen and Serge Clerc.

Gaston Lagaffe
This first experience of a gag strip led to the creation of his iconic 'Gaston Lagaffe' character on 28 February 1957. Drawn from the template of the American beatnik, the character initially caused amoc in the magazine's editorial sections. He simply just appeared in the pages without any title or explanation. After a weeks of intrigueing readers Spirou and Fantasio finally noticed him and asked him who he was, who had sent him and why? They only received an answer to the first question, because the rest he couldn't remember. This unusual introduction was a striking example of Spirou's fun atmosphere and tongue-in-cheek approach under Yvan Delporte's editorship, which led to the popularization of the anti-hero in European comics. After a few weeks, Franquin started featuring Gaston in half-page gags, which were mostly drawn by his assistant Jidéhem. From its start as a strip with mainly office humor in the early years, to the hilarious and over-the-top happenings in later years: Gaston's antics have enjoyed generations of comic book readers, with new gags appearing until the 1990s.

Right from the start, Gaston was established as the laziest employee at Spirou's editorial office. The backgrounds were clearly recognizable as the Dupuis headquarters and the streets outside as Brussels. Some characters referenced real-life Dupuis employees, most notably the publisher himself, "Monsieur Dupuis", although his face was never shown. The long-suffering business man, Mr. De Mesmaeker, borrowed his looks and name from Jidéhem's father. Many comics authors and series of the time, some of them long forgotten by now, were regularly mentioned. In a way 'Gaston' has become both an unintentional time capsule of Brussels between 1957 and 1997, as well as a document of the editorial ambience at Spirou at the time. Despite this very inside joke atmosphere and unapologetic Belgian setting 'Gaston' still made readers laugh, even outside the Belgian borders. It has been easily translated in many languages, among them German, Spanish ('Tomás Elgafe'), Portuguese ('Gastão Dabronca'), Italian, Greek, Polish, Danish ('Vakse Viggo'), Norwegian ('Viggo'), Swedish, Icelandic ('Viggo Vidutan'), Finnish ('Niilo Pielinen'), Serbian (Gaša šeprtlja), Croatian and Turkish ('Chapchal Gazi'). Much had to do with the fact that Gaston's laziness, clumsiness and overall stupidity always ended in hilarious over-the-top disaster. For a long while the albums weren't available in English, but the frequent mentioning of Franquin in many articles, books and documentaries about comics eventually led to the publication of 'Gomer Goof'.

Gaston's infamous gaffophone (1967)

Gaston's original boss and fixed opponent at the office was Fantasio, and the magazine's title hero Spirou was seen in the early gags as well. At the same time, Gaston had occasional guest appearances in 'Spirou et Fantasio' episodes. When Franquin handed the 'Spirou et Fantasio' comic to Fournier, he stopped using Fantasio in the 'Gaston' gags. He was replaced by the grouchy Prunelle, whose frequent curse "Rogntudju!" became a familiar phrase to many. Although the strip ran for over 30 years, Gaston's superiors never managed to actually get him to work. While he had only one thing to do: sort the mail! Gaston spent most of his time sleeping behind his desk. But at least then he was somewhat harmless. Whenever Gaston was awake he would spent all his energy on crafting mad inventions, of which the extraordinary Gaffophone is the most notorious. Most of his experiments ended in unexpected accidents, explosions, collapsing walls or other bodily harm. The young employee also frequently brought stuff and creatures to the office that any sane person would leave at home. From motorcycles, chainsaws and bowling balls to his hyperactive cat and aggressive seagull. Gaston was always a danger for his co-workers, particularly his boss. Yet the biggest victim of Gaston's antics was Mr. De Mesmaeker, whom Fantasio and Prunelle kept trying to sign a business transaction. Time and time again Gaston managed to unwillingly offend him or destroy the contracts he brought along. And yet, whatever happened, Gaston always felt the others were overreacting, which he expressed by muttering: "M'enfin?!" ("What the...?" or "Oh, c'mon now!").

Gaston's inability to deal with authority also brought him into conflict with police officer Longtarin who'd always try to fine Gaston for parking his car in the wrong spot or neglecting to put another nickle in the parking meter. The only people who actually liked Gaston were his friends Bertrand Labevué, Manu, Jules-de-chez-Smith-en-face (Jules-from-Smith's-across-the-street) and his co-worker Mademoiselle Jeanne who is hopelessly in love with him. It is a miracle that Gaston got fired only once during all these years, and this was after he brought a cow to the office. But tons of letters from pleading readers saved him.

M. De Mesmaeker meets Gaston's cat

The integration of Gaston's world in Spirou's editorials was further enhanced in the mid 1960s, when textual accounts of Gaston's exploits were published in Spirou's pages.Written by Yvan Delporte and illustrated by Franquin, the stories sometimes didn't even deviate that much from the real world, as Delporte at one point brought an actual lion cub called Pinky to work.

'Gaston' in advertising
Gaston was also one of the first popular comic characters to star in advertising gags. Starting with a series of gags for the table beer Orange Pied-Boeuf in the 1950s, Gaston later appeared in advertising gags for Kodak in the 1970s, and in a series of gags for Philips batteries in the 1980s. Gaston's nephew also appeared in the Kodak pages, and was revived in 2011-2014 by artist Simon Léturgie and writers Yann and Jean Léturgie in a spin-off gag series called 'Gastoon' at Marsu Productions.

'Gaston' media adaptations
In 1981 'Gaston' was loosely adapted into a live-action film, 'Fais Gaffa à la Gaffe' (1981) by Paul Boujenah. Another attempt was made three decades later, 'Gaston Lagaffe' (2018) by Pierre-François Martin-Laval. Both were flops. In 1983 Henri Seroka brought out two singles, 'Petite souris qui m'sourit'/'Ça casse tout le rock à Gaston' (1981), based on the series. In 2009 the studio Normaal adapted the comic strip into animated TV shorts, which animated the original drawings by adding sound effects and movement.

Header illustration for Spirou/Robbedoes introducing Jijé's new 'Jerry Spring' story

Petit-Noël
The 1950s and 1960s were the most productive period of Franquin's career. He not only drew Spirou's title comic, produced 'Gaston' and 'Modeste et Pompon', but also illustrated the covers for the books with collected editions of Spirou magazine, and designed beautiful headers for Spirou's frontpage, that served as introductions for new serials. He furthermore created the shy little boy 'Petit-Noël' for a story in Spirou's mini-book section (1957), and he developed the character of 'Starter' for the automotive section written by Jacques Wauters in 1956. 'Petit-Noël' would later be revived by Jean-Claire Stibane with support of Franquin (albums in 1990 and 1994). 'Starter' would eventually by continued by Jidéhem.

'Starter'

Assistants
Because of the increasing workload, he often called in the help of his friends. Jijé's brother Henri Gillain (Jean Darc) and Franquin's friend Geo Salmon (Jo Almo) had helped with the plots of some of the early 'Spirou' stories, and for his later masterpieces Franquin was mainly aided by scriptwriter Greg. But also Maurice Rosy and Peyo helped out, as did Will for some of the background art. Franquin opened his private (and secret) atelier in the Avenue du Brésil in Brussels, where he surrounded himself with several co-workers, of which Jidéhem was the most prominent. Jidéhem provided the backgrounds for several 'Spirou' stories, drew the initial 'Gaston' gags and succeeded Franquin as the illustrator of the 'Starter' section. Jean Verbruggen was responsible for the coloring, while Jean Roba helped with the artwork of the three 'Spirou' stories that were developed especially for the French newspaper Le Parisien Libéré in 1958-1959. Other artists that attended Franquin's atelier were Marcel Denis and Kiko. As a team effort, the group made the 1959 story 'L'Île au Boumptéryx' under the joint signature of "Ley Kip" (phonetic for "l'équipe" = "the team").

Discontinuation of 'Spirou'
Franquin frequently suffered from depressions, which at one point led to a long interruption of the Spirou story 'QRN sur Bretzelburg' in 1961. While his Spirou stories are nearly all classics, Franquin never felt at ease with the characters, as he didn't create them himself. The artist was his own worst critic, and he never really felt satisfied with his work. He mostly enjoyed creating the exploits of 'Gaston Lagaffe', and eventually felt more and more alienated from the 'Spirou' series. That's why he called it quits in 1968 and handed over the 'Spirou' series to the young Breton artist Jean-Claude Fournier in order to devote all of his time to 'Gaston'. He decided to keep the Marsupilami for himself though, for future use. To smoothe the transition to his successor, he did give a helping hand by drawing his long-tailed animal in Fournier's debut story.

Gaston gag with signature

Funny doodles and autographs
From then on, the 'Gaston' gags started appearing on full pages of four strips, instead of half pages of two, and Prunelle replaced Fantasio as Gaston's opponent. Franquin assumed full artistic control, and began to experiment with graphical jokes, such as funny autographs and strange monsters in the posters on the background. Franquin usually scribbled these monsters for his own pleasure or while he was at home or in a restaurant or café. A selection of these were later published in magazines like Schtroumpf and Circus, and starred on a series of postcards. His autographs were collected in the book 'Signé Franquin', which was published by Dupuis in 1992, and Marsu Productions published two books with his monsters in 2002 and 2003. His more abstract doodles were also collected in 2003.

Idées Noires
The darker side of Franquin's personality would come to notice in the pages of Le Trombone Illustré, a satirical supplement to Spirou that Franquin launched with Yvan Delporte in 1977. The supplement first introduced the cynical comic shadow plays, known as 'Idées Noires' ('Dark Thoughts'). But Franquin also created beautiful headers for this tabloid sized paper, starring a host of characters, including the Marsupilami and a rather strange bishop. Upon the cancellation of Le Trombone, the 'Idées Noires' started appearing in Fluide Glacial, the magazine of Franquin's friend Gotlib. Unlike Franquin's generally positive and poetic other work, these pages showed the author's pessimistic and more controversial view on human nature.

'Idées Noires'

The series came about as an outlet for his own depressions and features very black comedy. Some gags are fantasy-oriented, with jokes about monsters or people in science fiction settings. Others are more disturbing because they take their inspiration from real-life fears, like horrific accidents, executions, suicides, being eaten by animals, epidemics, world war, the atomic bomb and mankind eventually destroying itself. Particularly notable are the gags where Franquin expresses his left-wing opinions about game hunters, animal abuse, pollution, fur, smokers, the death penalty, religion, the army and nuclear energy. The nihilistic tone is complimented by the black-and-white ink drawings which all feature silhouetted characters cast in shadowy backgrounds. Despite its popularity with readers, Franquin eventually quit the series because it became all too depressing and formulaic.

'Idées Noires'

Scriptwriting
In addition, Franquin and Delporte have served as scriptwriters for a couple of other comic series. Between 1975 and 1985, their wide imagination was also expressed in the magical 'Isabelle' series, that Delporte had developed with Raymond Macherot and artist Will in 1969. They later scripted 'Arnest Ringard et Augraphie' for Frédéric Jannin, a comical series of short stories about the ongoing battle between a man and a mole (1978-1980 and then again from 1993-1995).

'Idées Noires'

Work in the 1980s and 1990s
However, Franquin's activities declined during the 1980s, and 'Gaston' made less frequent appearances in Spirou's pages throughout the decade. The artists's social consciousness also became clear in his later 'Gaston' gags. He used his character on specially designed posters and postcards for Unicef and Amnesty International, and humanitarian and ecological subjects were also explored in the regular gags. In 1980 Franquin was one of many Belgian comics artists to make a graphic contribution to the book 'Il était une fois... les Belges'/'Er waren eens Belgen' (1980), a collection of columns and one-page comics, published at the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Belgium. He drew an exclusive 'Gaston' gag. In 1990, Franquin was involved in the development of an animated series for Swiss television, called 'La Chronique des Tifous' (1990), together with Delporte, Xavier Fauche, Nic Broca and Jean Léturgie. 25 episodes of 5 minutes were made. A book with Franquin's sketches was published by Éditions Dessis.

Postcard starring Gaston for Unicef

Marsupilami spin-off
Although the rights of the Marsupilami were his, he seldomly used the character after leaving the 'Spirou' comic. The long-tailed animal, often accompanied by Petit Noël, appeared in only a couple of gag pages and short stories from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Yet he remained a pop culture mainstay. The 1970s British progressive rock band Marsupilami named themselves after the character. In 1978, the German singer Dennie Christian released a Dutch language song called 'Wij zijn twee vrienden', about the friendship between Gaston and the Marsupilami. The song, cashing in on the success of Dutch singer Vader Abraham's 'Het Smurfenlied' ('The Smurfs' Song', 1977) about Peyo's 'The Smurfs', increased the characters' popularity among the general public, even though Franquin himself felt that Gaston and the Marsupilami were rarely teamed up in his comics and thus had nothing in common. But it proved that a comic book spin-off based on the character had commercial potential...

The character finally reappeared in 1987, when Franquin and Jean-François Moyersoen launched Marsu Productions to give the character a comic book series of its own. Franquin kept overall control over the strip, but the graphical part was handled by Batem, and the stories were scripted by Greg and later Yann. The new stories were based on the animal's life in the Palombian jungle, as Franquin had depicted in his 1960 'Spirou' album 'Le Nid des Marsupilamis' ('The Nest of the Marsupilamis'). Other characters returned in the initial set-up, such as the female Marsupilami, the baby Marsupilamis and the hunter Bring M. Backalive. The series still runs to this day (2018), still drawn by Batem, and written by a host of scriptwriters, most notably Stéphane Colman.

Gag from 1971 starring the Marsupilami and Petit Noël

Marsupilami media adaptations
In 1993, the Marsupilami also starred in a somewhat offbeat cartoon series by the Walt Disney Studios, which completely deviated from Franquin's original creation. The setting was changed from South-America to Africa, new side characters were added and the animal spoke in this series, instead of his familiar shouts of "Houba! Houba!" Marsu Productions sued Disney as a result and actually won their case, as well as the rights to the character back. A more faithful series to Franquin's characters, was produced by Cactus Animation in France. It ran for 26 episodes on Canal J in 2000. A second series followed in 2003, and more seasons were added from 2009. A French CGI-animated/live-action film based on Franquin's creation, directed by Alain Chabat, was released in April 2012.

Marsupilami - 'La Cage' (1965)

Death and legacy
André Franquin, considered as one of the founding fathers of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition, passed away in Saint-Laurent du Var in January 1997. His impressive oeuvre continues to be reprinted in varying formats to this day. From the collection of his complete works at Éditions Rombaldi in the 1980s to the large format luxury publications with reproductions of Franquin's original artwork at Marsu Productions in the 2000s, the demand for Franquin's work seems to be insatiable. Since the 2010s, Franquin's shorter 'Spirou et Fantasio' stories are being recolored by Frédéric Jannin, annotated by José-Louis Bocquet and Serge Honorez, and remounted to their original format for a series of hardcover books at Éditions Dupuis. Also, recent thematic collections of gags are yet another incarnation of the 'Gaston' album series, which started with the small format books in 1966, and seems to be as chaotic as its protagonist. Dupuis has furthermore released book collections of Franquin's cover illustrations, header illustrations and fanzine interviews. On the occasion of Gaston's 60th anniversary, Dupuis released two hommage albums with contributions by a variety of contemporary authors in 2017. The French-language 'La Galerie des Gaffes' consisted of tributes by Walloon and French authors, while 'Guust 60 Jaar: Gefeliciteerd!' contained work by Dutch and Flemish artists and writers. Gaston even inspired a few parody books. In 1983 the book 'Baston Labaffe no 5 : La Ballade des baffes' (1983) came out, in which various famous Franco-Belgian cartoonists created their own personal parody of the series. Closer to plagiarism were Gérard Dorville's 'Alfred, Auguste et Popaul' (1957-1962) and Francisco Ibañez' 'El botones Sacarino' (1963).

Several studies of Franquin's work have appeared. One of the first and probably best-known is 'Et Franquin créa la gaffe' (1986), a collection of interviews with Franquin about his work by Numa Sadoul. A quite complete overview of his life and work was compiled and written by José-Louis Bocquet and Eric Verhoest under the title 'Franquin - Chronologie d'une Oeuvre', at Marsu Productions in 2007. Furthermore, the trip that Franquin, Jijé and Morris made to the US in the 1940s served as the inspiration of the graphic adaptation 'Gringos Locos' by Yann and Olivier Schwartz in 2012.

From April until June in 1991, André Franquin exhibited a selection of his traditional comics work and abstract black-and-white sketches at Gallery Lambiek.

Recognition
André Franquin has been praised and awarded numerous times throughout his life. In 1974 he received the Grand Prix at the Comics Festival of Angoulême, in 1980 the Adamson Award and in 1994 the Max und Moritz Preis. In 1989 he was one of a select few Belgian comics pioneers to be inducted as part of the permanent exhibition at the Belgian Comics Center in Brussels. Franquin ended 16th in the 2005 Walloon election for "Greatest Belgian", while he remained at number 117 in the Flemish version. In 2017 an asteroid was named after him.

Legacy and influence
Franquin's comics remain best-sellers and are still frequently reprinted to this day. In 1996 Gaston received his own statue at the Boulevard Pachéco, not far from the Belgian Centre of Comics. The Dutch city Almere named a road after him and a garden after the Marsupilami in 2003, as part of their "Comics Heroes District". On 28 February 2007 Gaston received his own comic book mural in the Rue de l'Ecuyer/Schildknaapstraat in Brussels, as part of the Brussels' Comic Book Route. As a special treat and nod to the series all parking meters in Brussels were free from charges that day! On 8 May 2013 the Marsupilami also received his own wall in the Avenue Houba De Strooper/Houba De Strooperlaan in Brussels, again part of the Brussels' Comic Book Route. The choice for this street was not coincidental, as Franquin was inspired to give the Marsupilami his familiar catchphrase 'Houba! Houba!' by reading the street sign. Louis Houba-De Strooper was a local city secretary. The Marsupilami also has no less than two statues, one on the Jules Hiérnaux square in Charleroi, erected in 1988, and another one in Middelkerke, which was created in 2009 to be part of their Comics Route. In 2018 another statue of Gaston was erected in Charleroi. In perhaps the highest honour the 'Gaston' comics ended at number 98 in Le Monde's "100 Books of the 20th Century", as one of the few comics included in the list. But, then again, since 2000 the Marsupilami has an asteroid named after him!